It is now four years since Czapek & Cie. launched its Antarctique collection. This stainless steel sports watch with its elegant lines and integrated bracelet would have been a success if the brand had stopped there, but what really makes the line stand out is its range of textured and colourful dials that give each timepiece its very own personality. We have chosen five of our favourites to prove the point!
Antarctique Green Meteorite
Let’s start with the latest addition to the collection with the Antarctique Green Meteor. “After creating the Antarctique Viridian Green in 2021 in partnership with Fratello Watches, collectors asked if we could do another green dial,” shares Xavier de Roquemaurel, CEO of Czapek & Cie. “I was visiting our partner, GT Cadrans, and held a disc of meteorite against my Antarctique. It looked so right with the style of watch,” he explains.
The meteorite used in this timepiece has a three dimensional aesthetic with geometric lines that are created by the crystallized structures of its iron-nickel alloy. Called the Widmanstätten pattern – after Alois von Widmanstätten, a Viennese scientist who discovered it in 1808 – this unique motif formed as the meteorite gradually cooled during its journey through the cosmos to Earth. This dial has been taken from the Gibeon meteorite which landed in Namibia over 600 million years ago.
Bringing out all the beauty of the meteorite, Czapek & Cie.’s artisans start by acid-washing the stone before polishing it to reveal the pattern. The mineral is then coloured with several layers of green lacquer for this stunning effect.
Antarctique Titanium Dark Sector
The Antarctique Titanium Dark Sector presents a completely different look for the collection with a geometrical anthracite dial. Featuring a traditional minute track around the periphery of the dial and a double row of lightly arched parallel segments, the look is highly contemporary and yet slightly vintage at the same time.
“The idea was simple, but required great precision to execute,” says de Roquemaurel. “The hands crossing from segment to segment over the dusky backdrop of the dial looks almost like a shoreline seen from far above. The dial was designed in such a way that the marker becomes the void between each sector (an almost philosophical way of defining matter). This spontaneously inspired the model’s name “Dark Sector”, which comes from the Dark Sector Laboratory and telescopes at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, where the skies over Antarctica are the clearest and darkest in the world.”
Antarctique Passage de Drake Afterglow
Staying in the South Pole, the Passage de Drake models are named after the body of water between South America’s Cape Horn and Antarctica, where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans converge. Considered by many to be the most treacherous ocean-faring passage, it has been the inspiration for Czapek & Cie.’s Antarctique Passage de Drake collection.
This collection features an atypical trapezoid dial motif whose three-dimensional stamped surface creates a play on the light across the dial. This was actually supposed to be the launch dial for the collection, but it took longer than expected to perfect. “We finally discovered the perfect motif when our designer accidentally enlarged the trapezoids by 50% without realizing it and it looked amazing. That’s the beauty of mistakes!” notes de Roquemaurel. Photographed here is the Afterglow purple version, but the Passage de Drake is also available in white, glacier blue, deep blue and black.
Antarctique S – La Cartes des Nuages Stormy Grey
For this La Cartes des Nuages version, first released in 2022, we move from the ocean to the clouds with a 38.5mm version of the Antarctique model, designed for smaller wrists. This timepiece features a fascinating mother-of-pearl dial that looks just like a stormy sky thanks to the use of mother-of-pearl taken from the central, most lustrous part of the oyster shell. Completing the design, six fine guilloché gridlines divide the dial in a reference to cartography.
The Cartes des Nuages Stormy Grey timepiece, and its lighter Misty White version, are paired with an array of diamonds on the dial, including a special Antarctique-cut stone for the 12 o’clock index and 11 Princess-cut diamonds for the other indexes, along with a sprinkling of diamonds on the bezel, integrated lugs, and first “C” link of the bracelet.
Antarctique Révelation Skeleton
For the Antarctique Révelation Skeleton edition, Czapek & Cie decided to try something different by taking the dial away altogether to display a brand-new skeletonized movement, the SXH7. The inspiration came from the brand’s clients says de Roquemaurel: “People were in love with the remarkable design of our SXH5 movement, and we therefore asked ourselves how we could somehow make it visible on the dial.”
A good idea, but not a simple one, as it took three years for the brand to complete the movement as part of it has been turned upside down and the mainplate features a complex filigree skeletonization. Add to this hollowed-out bridges, wheels, and hands, and the Antarctique Révelation has totally earned its name.
Admittedly, it isn’t easy to choose which Antarctique we prefer, but do let us know which one you like best.
